The Isabella River winds its way west toward Bald Eagle Lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. (MPR File Photo/Nathaniel Minor)

A five day trial beginning this week in Hennepin County will determine if AT&T can build a cell phone tower visible from many locations within the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. AT&T argues local residents ought to be able to get better service and that service would increase public safety within the wilderness. Environmentalists counter that the tower would put birds at risk and spoil the rare wilderness experience.

The Star Tribunereports the proposed tower, like the wilderness area, is huge.

The tower would include lights that would flash day and night and wiring to support it. With the height of the ridge, the top of the tower would reach 600 feet above the shore of nearby Pipestone Bay. By comparison, downtown Minneapolis’ Foshay Tower stands 448 feet tall and Minneapolis’ tallest building, the IDS Tower, is 886 feet. Most cell phone towers in the state are no taller than 199 feet.

Can you hear me now?

A slight echo of a ring-tone across a lake that took days to reach with your own strength would no doubt annoy fishing and outdoor enthusiasts. The visual pollution could cheapen the wonder of the northern lights, but it would provide residents and potentially stranded canoeists a more reliable connection to the outside world.

For years, travelers in the BWCA are finding cell service growing, but without the intrusion of a tower of this size. The signal isn’t reliable enough for you to leave your first aid kit at home.

The tower has found support by some locals who say the wilderness isn’t as wild as opponents suggest. The Ely Timberjaywrote about the issue last year:

“There are all kinds of things that are visible from the wilderness,” said Mary Tome, a Fall Lake Township supervisor. “You can see car lights from some of the landings on Fall Lake. You can see airplanes. The border patrol is visible from parts of the wilderness. They’re flying around up there all the time,” said Tome.

Communication into the deep woods has been a challenge for years, but creative measures have circumvented the challenge. Broadcasters at WELY continue to aid the transmissions of messages via their Personal and Emergency Message service which allows people to send coded messages over the FM airwaves to their colleges, friends and family.

The issue of cell towers encroaching on wilderness areas and experiences is also playing out further south of the Boundary Waters. A similar AT&T tower will be erected along the banks of the St. Croix River, a National Scenic Waterway, much to the chagrin of locals there.

Much of the flood damage being caused in Cass County is related to roadways, North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple said this afternoon in Fargo.”It doesn’t take long to add up to millions in damages,” Dalrymple said, referring to the approximately 60 miles of Cass County roadways made impassable by flooding (Inforum).

The state currently upholds the 10 parts-per-million standard as the litmus test for industrial runoff into wild rice waters. But a battle over how much sulfate is too much for wild rice rages among Minnesota lawmakers, the courts, state and federal regulators (Duluth News Tribune).

A Stillwater bridge that doesn’t destroy scenic value

With Sen. Al Franken yet to weigh in, there’s still a chance to adjust the calculations and get a bridge that satisfies all parties (Minn Post).

Big city mayors say funding cuts tied to politics

The Democratic mayors of Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth accuse the new Republican majorities in the Minnesota Legislature of targeting their cities for financial attacks (Pioneer Press).

First Listen: Low, ‘C’mon’

Recorded after Low’s time off, C’mon sounds lush and beautiful in its simplicity, just like the Low that fans love (NPR).

That talk about the media got Khatti thinking about the sins of interviewers. They are often, he said, sins of omission.

“(T)he reporters and interviewers don’t ask the question because the question genuinely doesn’t occur to them,” he wrote. It’s understandable. There are only so many minutes in an hour, and only so many questions someone can ask.

But it prompted Khatti to think about a new Insight Now segment:

“I want to institute a new segment to our Open Mic thread: “Fantasy Questions for Kerri.” This is the place where we dream up questions for Kerri Miller (host of MPR’s Midmorning program) that she will probably never ask of guests that she will probably never have on the air.”

What a great way to think of subjects we might want to tackle.

Imagine for a moment you are Kerri Miller, or Gary Eichten, or Charlie Rose…. heck it could be Barbara Walters or Ted Koppel. You have a broadcast interview program. It could be national (think NPR), it could be statewide (MPR). But you are going to do it your way.

What’s one question you always wished would have been asked of one interview subject. It could be someone likely to be on these kinds of programs (the president, the governor), but it might also be someone who wouldn’t be thought of as a typical guest. Khatti, for example, wanted to ask the former husband of rock singer Pat Benatar what it was like for him to have been dumped by her for a career.

Now remember, this is an “open mic” thread, where you can play off of the ideas of others… just be kind of free-flowing with your ideas.

So take the chair in the studio and become the host of a broadcast interview program. What question would you ask that you’ve always wanted to hear on MPR or NPR? Who would be the person to field that question? And explain why?

Related Blog Posts

A traditional part of wilderness travel has been the acceptance of risk that comes with isolation. Do folks REALLY need cell-phone communication on a canoe trip? In all honesty, some of the folks who go to the BWCA would be better served in a KOA campground or the Mall of America.

Karen

Part of the fun of going to BWCA is making your last phone call from somewhere around Ely; then you cross into what’s wild and wonderful.

uptownZombie

There are devices other than cellphones that can advertise your location to emergency services if you need them. To put this tower up sets a bad precedence

This tower may well provide service to the BWCA, which may or may not be a good or necessary thing, but it would also provide service to those who live around the BWCA. In rural townships of northern Minnesota cell coverage is weak and better coverage would offer a previously unavailable service: data plans and faster internet access. I can understand the problems with a tower, but visitors are the only stakeholders in this.

This tower may well provide service to the BWCA, which may or may not be a good or necessary thing, but it would also provide service to those who live around the BWCA. In rural townships of northern Minnesota cell coverage is weak and better coverage would offer a previously unavailable service: data plans and faster internet access. I can understand the problems with a tower, but visitors aren’t the only stakeholders in this.

If 199′ towers suffice throughout most areas, and two 199′ towers would provide the same coverage as the proposed 450′ tower without the added risk to migratory birds and diminution of the wilderness experience, then two towers – which would be paid for by approximately an additional 3 months profits – seem like a far superior idea.

The reason for the 199′ alternative is it requires no flashing lights – that requirement kicks in at 200′.

I’m a cell-phone user, with no land-line. In fact, I follow twitter feeds and get other information such as weather alerts that way, so don’t count me in the “anti-progress” crowd. There’s a lot of benefit from technological progress, and public safety is a great reason to add better coverage.

But when I visit the Gunflint/BWCA areas, as I do several times most years, I cherish the unspoiled views of a mostly natural horizon, especially at night. Strobe lights atop a 450′ tower would ruin the beauty of the night for miles around, in what is now some of the most pristine, undeveloped areas of the state. Given the reasonable and obvious alternative I can’t support the behemoth approach.

However, cell phone coverage in the BW, and I believe this tower will even reach the Quetico, will cheapen the wilderness experience.

Part of the beauty of the experience is that you are out there. If you need help, you will get it. But it shouldn’t be as easy as dialing 911. Already people are entirely too addicted to being connected. Can you imagine being at a portage and having to listen to some punk chatting away on their phone?

If we can serve the residents and preserve the wilderness, why not do both?